At the Spring 1964 meeting OF THE OPTICAL SOCIETY OF America, in Washington, D.C., Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks, from the University of Michigan, gave a presentation about their work in holography. When Upatnieks concluded his address, he announced that one of these images, a hologram of a toy train, was on display in a suite in the conference hotel. A line soon formed out the door of the suite, down the hall, and around the corner, with everyone eager to get a glimpse of this three-dimensional photograph. But the scientists had trouble believing what they saw. “They were all asking, ‘Where is the train?’” Leith says. “We had to tell them, ‘Back in Ann Arbor.’”
If you have never seen a “display hologram,” reconstructed with monochromatic light, you might not believe your eyes either. At the MIT Museum, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, holographic portraits hover in the air in front of their frames, begging to be touched. Images projected a foot in front of the frame are common, and projections up to four feet are obtainable with some large holograms.
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